National Society of Film Criticshttp://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4
The Truth, Once Every 12 MonthsSun, 15 Feb 2015 19:35:52 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Godard says the last line reads “aun aprendo” – still learning. It is thought that the drawing is by Goya.http://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?p=109
http://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?p=109#commentsThu, 08 Jan 2015 15:18:49 +0000http://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?p=109http://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?feed=rss2&p=1090Jean-Luc Godard thanks NSFC for Best Film citationhttp://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?p=82
http://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?p=82#commentsWed, 07 Jan 2015 20:26:08 +0000http://69.195.124.250/~natiopb4/?p=82

According to Wild Bunch, the parenthetical is a French translation of “still learning” and the drawing appears to be from Goya.

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According to Wild Bunch, the parenthetical is a French translation of “still learning” and the drawing appears to be from Goya.

The National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, January 3, 2015, chose Jean-Luc Godard’s 3-D film Goodbye to Language as Best Picture of the Year 2014.

The Society, made up of many of the country’s most distinguished movie critics, held its 49th annual awards voting meeting, using a weighted ballot system, at the Elinor [...]]]>

The National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, January 3, 2015, chose Jean-Luc Godard’s 3-D film Goodbye to Language as Best Picture of the Year 2014.

The Society, made up of many of the country’s most distinguished movie critics, held its 49th annual awards voting meeting, using a weighted ballot system, at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Center as guests of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Scrolls will be sent to the winners.

Fifty-nine members are eligible to vote, though a few disqualify themselves if they haven’t seen every film. Any film that opened in the U.S. during the year 2014 was eligible for consideration. There is no nomination process; members meet, vote (using a weighted ballot), and announce all on January 3rd. There is no awards party; scrolls are sent to the winners.

Here is a list of the winners and runners-up, with vote counts from the final round.

FILM HERITAGE AWARD
1. To Ron Magliozzi, associate curator, and Peter Williamson, film conservation manager, of the Museum of Modern Art, for identifying and assembling the earliest surviving footage of what would have been the first feature film to star a black cast, the 1913 “Lime Kiln Field Day” starring Bert Williams.

2. To Ron Hutchinson, co-founder and director of The Vitaphone Project, which since 1991 has collected and restored countless original soundtrack discs for early sound short films and features, including the recent Warner Bros. restoration of William A. Seiter’s 1929 “Why Be Good?”

DEDICATION: The meeting was dedicated to the memory of two distinguished members of the Society who died in 2014: Jay Carr and Charles Champlin.

The National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, January 4th, 2014, chose Inside Llewyn Davis as Best Picture of the Year 2013. See the following pages for all votes in Best Picture and other categories for outstanding film achievement.

The Society, made up of many of the country’s most distinguished movie critics, held [...]]]>

The National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, January 4th, 2014, chose Inside Llewyn Davis as Best Picture of the Year 2013. See the following pages for all votes in Best Picture and other categories for outstanding film achievement.

The Society, made up of many of the country’s most distinguished movie critics, held its 48th annual awards voting meeting, using a weighted ballot system, at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Center as guests of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Scrolls will be sent to the winners.

Fifty-six members are eligible to vote, though a few disqualify themselves if they haven’t seen every film. Any film that opened in the U.S. during the year 2013 was eligible for consideration. There is no nomination process; members meet, vote (using a weighted ballot), and announce all on January 4th. There is no awards party; scrolls are sent to the winners.

Here is a list of the winners and runners-up, with vote counts from the final round.

FILM HERITAGE AWARD
• To the Museum of Modern Art, for its wide-ranging retrospective of the films of Allan Dwan.
• “Too Much Johnson”: the surviving reels from Orson Welles’s first professional film. Discovered by Cinemazero (Pordenone) and Cineteca del Friuli; funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation; and restored by the George Eastman House.
• British Film Institute for restorations of Alfred Hitchcock’s nine silent features.
• To the DVD “American Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive.”

Jan 5, 2013 — The National Society of Film Critics, made of 60 of the country’s most prominent writers on film, today voted Michael Haneke’s “Amour” the best film of 2012. A full list of the other awards follows, with the winner designated by an asterisk and the first and second runners up listed [...]]]>

Jan 5, 2013 — The National Society of Film Critics, made of 60 of the country’s most prominent writers on film, today voted Michael Haneke’s “Amour” the best film of 2012. A full list of the other awards follows, with the winner designated by an asterisk and the first and second runners up listed with the number of votes each received.

FILM HERITAGE
• To Laurence Kardish, Senior Film Curator at MoMA, for his extraordinary 44 years of service, including this year’s Weimar Cinema retrospective.
• To Milestone Film & Video for their ongoing Shirley Clarke project.

DEDICATION: This year’s awards are dedicated to the late Andrew Sarris, one of the most original and influential American film critics as well as a founding member of the Society

The National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, January 7th, 2012, chose “Melancholia” as Best Picture of the Year 2011. Kristin Dunst was named best actress for her performance in Lars von Trier’s film, and Brad Pitt was named best actor for his work in “Moneyball” and “The Tree of Life.” Albert Brooks (or [...]]]>

The National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, January 7th, 2012, chose “Melancholia”
as Best Picture of the Year 2011. Kristin Dunst was named best actress for her performance in Lars von Trier’s film, and Brad Pitt was named best actor for his work in “Moneyball” and “The Tree of Life.” Albert Brooks (or his evil twin) won best supporting actor for his appearance in “Drive,” and Jessica Chastain was named best supporting actress for her work in three films: “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter” and “The Help.”

See below for all votes in Best Picture and other categories for outstanding film achievement.

The Society, which is made up of 58 of the country’s most prominent movie critics, held its 46th annual awards voting meeting at Sardi’s Restaurant in New York City, using a weighted ballot system. Scrolls will be sent to the winners.

The meeting was dedicated to the memory of our colleague Robert Sklar.

FILM HERITAGE
1. BAMcinématek for its complete Vincente Minnelli retrospective with all titles shown on 16 mm. or 35 mm. film.
2. Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Méliès’s “A Trip to the Moon.”
3. New York’s Museum of Modern Art for its extensive retrospective of Weimar Cinema.
4. Flicker Alley for their box set “Landmarks of Early Soviet Film.”
5. Criterion Collecton for its 2-disc DVD package “The Complete Jean Vigo.”

Here are the results of the January 8, 2011 vote by the members of the National Society of Film Critics. The winners are marked with a *, followed by the second and third place runners-up. 46 members out of 64 voted, using a weighted ballot system (3 points for first place, etc.); the numbers [...]]]>

Here are the results of the January 8, 2011 vote by the members of the National Society of Film Critics. The winners are marked with a *, followed by the second and third place runners-up. 46 members out of 64 voted, using a weighted ballot system (3 points for first place, etc.); the numbers represent the total votes for each nominee on the final, winning round.

The Society, which is made up of 61 of the country’s most prominent movie critics, held its 45th annual awards voting meeting at Sardi’s Restaurant in New York City. 46 members voted. Scrolls will be sent to the winners.

FILM HERITAGE AWARDS:
1. Flicker Alley for Chaplin at Keystone
This four-DVD set is the result of an eight-year effort by the British Film Institute, the Cineteca Bologna and Lobster Films in Paris to gather and restore early generation, full-frame 35-millimeter prints of Charles Chaplin’s earliest short comedies, allowing these historically and artistically important films to be seen for the first time in generations in versions approaching their original luster.
2. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment for the Elia Kazan Collection
This collection of fifteen films represents a rare collaboration among studios – including Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures – in bringing together the core body of the work of one of America’s most influential filmmakers.
3. The Film Foundation
for twenty years of providing financial support and moral leadership for the preservation and restoration of motion pictures from around the world.
4. Upstream
Long believed lost, John Ford’s 1927 backstage comedy was one of 75 silent-era American films discovered in the collection of the New Zealand Film Archive and repatriated under the auspices of the National Film Preservation Foundation with the collaboration of the Academy Film Archive, Park Road Post Production, and Twentieth Century Fox.
5. On the Bowery
Lionel Rogosin’s revolutionary 1956 semi-documentary about men on New York’s skid row was restored by Davide Pozzi of the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna in cooperation with the Rogosin Heritage and Anthology Film Archives and distributed in the U.S. by Milestone Films.
6. Word Is Out
A collective production of the Mariposa Film Group, this 1977 documentary was among the first films to give a free voice to members of the gay and lesbian community. Restored by Ross Lipman for the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Outfest Legacy Project and distributed by Milestone Films.

The meeting was dedicated to the memory of our colleague Peter Brunette.

Additionally, the society issued two statements, one protesting the “inconsistent and censorious” practices of the MPAA ratings board, the other condemning the Iranian governments harsh treatment of the filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof. The full texts of the statements are below:

STATEMENT ON THE MPAA RATINGS SYSTEM
The members of the National Society of Film Critics applaud the recent decision by the Classification & Ratings Administration of the Motion Picture Association of America to change the rating of “Blue Valentine” from NC-17 to R. But several other recent decisions by CARA have been allowed to stand, and these call into question the integrity and legitimacy of that office as it is presently constituted.

“The King’s Speech,” the drama about King George VI’s attempt to overcome his speech impediment, was rated R for “language,” specifically, several moments where the King is instructed by his speech therapist to swear to relieve the pressure of his stammer.

“The Tillman Story,” the documentary about the military cover-up of the death of Corporal Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, was similarly rated R for “language.” In the case of that film the offending content is the agitated language of soldiers in combat fearing for their lives.

“A Film Unfinished,” which contains footage taken by the Nazis inside the Warsaw Ghetto, was given an R for “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities, including graphic nudity.”

In the case of the documentaries “The Tillman Story” and “A Film Unfinished,” this amounts to CARA assigning a rating to reality.

In an editorial on the MPAA’s web site, Joan Graves, the head of CARA, claims, “These ratings are purely informational.”

This is simply untrue.

An R rating restricts who can get in to see a film and thus its potential earnings. An NC-17 rating, such as was originally assigned to “Blue Valentine,” will keep a film out of many theater chains and can deny its being advertised on most television networks and in many newspapers.

This can have an especially damaging effect on the earning potential of independently made films, such as those mentioned above, which do not have access to the large advertising budgets at the disposal of the major studios — studios, which, as CARA’s record indicates, have received much more lenient ratings for similar content.

Another damaging inconsistency is CARA’s record of judging sexual content more harshly than it does violence. We by no means advocate condemning violence in movies, and we do not believe we are doing so by pointing out that there is no equivalence between an R given to the most explicit horror images and the same rating given to a drama in which King George VI utters a four letter word. And certainly no equivalence to a historical document showing the emaciated bodies of dead Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Despite Ms. Graves’ contention that CARA decisions are “purely informational,” it’s clear that the board has become an agency of de facto censorship. There is a difference between giving parents the information they need to make a decision as to which films they want their children to see, and a system whose decisions make it harder for adults — and their children — to see films clearly meant for them.

The National Society of Film Critics believes that CARA has for too long demonstrated these inconsistencies and has refused to explain itself. We would like to believe that the major studios who constitute the membership of the MPAA care enough about the availability of movies to recognize that the ratings system should be open and consistent, not arbitrary and unfair, and that films from independent distributors should be judged by the same criteria as their own releases. It has become a system that enforces the kind of moral policing that, when it was founded in 1968, it was intended to prevent.

STATEMENT ON JAILED IRANIAN DIRECTORS
On December 18, 2010, an Iranian court sentenced Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof to six years in prison and banned both from filmmaking for 20 years for “colluding in gatherings and making propaganda against the regime.”

The members of the National Society of Film Critics add their voices to those of the many other individuals and organizations who have protested this injustice. We strongly urge the Iranian government to release both artists, whose work can only further the advancement of such values as justice, compassion, tolerance, and human dignity. Jafar Panahi’s films in particular have won international awards, earned the accolades of critics all over the world, and delighted and inspired audiences everywhere they are shown.

Not only does the court’s decision impose an outrageous penalty on artists whose sole crime is telling the truth, but it deprives Iran and the world of future works by filmmakers of outstanding talent and vision.

We intend our protest to affirm the value of artistic expression and the power of cinema to transcend political differences and unite people in their common humanity. We hope that the Iranian government will recognize the wisdom of releasing Mr. Panahi and Mr. Rasoulof immediately in the name of these universal principles.

Here are the results of the January 2, 2010 vote by the members of the National Society of Film Critics. The winners are marked with a *, followed by the second and third place runners-up. 46 members out of 64 voted, using a weighted ballot system (3 points for first place, etc.); the numbers [...]]]>

Here are the results of the January 2, 2010 vote by the members of the National Society of Film Critics. The winners are marked with a *, followed by the second and third place runners-up. 46 members out of 64 voted, using a weighted ballot system (3 points for first place, etc.); the numbers represent the total votes for each nominee on the final, winning round.

FILM HERITAGE AWARD
Restoration of Rashomon by Academy Film Archive, the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and Kadokawa Pictures, Inc.
Bruce Posner for the restoration of “Manhatta”
Treasures from American Film Archives, Vol. 4: Avant Garde 1947-1986 (National Film Preservation Foundation).
Warner Archive Collection.
UCLA Film &Television Archive for its restoration of The Red Shoes.
Kino International Avant-Garde Volume 3 (Experimental Cinema 1922-1954).

Welcome to the brand-new, fresh-out-of-the-box, barely functioning website of the National Society of Film Critics, a professional organization formed in 1966 to promote the art and science of reviewing motion pictures for general interest publications. We have approximately 60 members whose work appears in a variety of formats, including daily newspapers, weekly and monthly [...]]]>

Welcome to the brand-new, fresh-out-of-the-box, barely functioning website of the National Society of Film Critics, a professional organization formed in 1966 to promote the art and science of reviewing motion pictures for general interest publications. We have approximately 60 members whose work appears in a variety of formats, including daily newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines, alternative weeklies and on the internet. We’ve published a number of anthologies of distinguished writing on the movies, and each January we meet to vote awards for the year’s achievements.

The group’s awards for 2009 will be announced later today (Sunday, January 3), following the usual calm, orderly meeting at Broadway’s fabled Sardi’s Restaurant.